The present invention relates to a plate positioning apparatus for use in plate workpiece processing machines such as punching machine for plate working presses or in dripping work such as for drip coating devices for dripping liquid synthetic resin onto buttons.
The conventional apparatus of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,434,693. This apparatus is constructed so that two aligning members are arranged to move independently in respective orthogonally intersecting directions, that is in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction.
In this conventional apparatus, a plate workpiece must be accurately positioned by the aligning members. The conventional apparatus of this type is disadvantageous in that a positional misalignment occurs in the case having a plate workpiece of a large area since the plate workpiece is positioned only by applying the respective plate workpiece to the end faces of the aligning members. An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which depressingly holds two adjacent sides of a plate workpiece by an X-axis side aligning member and a Y-axis side aligning member and firmly supports and maintains the plate workpiece by a protrusion provided on the Y-axis side aligning member to support the edege of the plate workpiece.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus capable of preventing the intrusion of dust ino the base frames which guide the aligning members by completely covering the upper side of each base frame.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus of the above type with a movable position detecting switch in each base frame so as to provide the capability of freely setting the stop position of the aligning member divided thereby.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus of the above type having a means for filling a notched part provided in the X-axis side aligning member if required. Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus of the above type having at least one aligning bar on the X-axis side aligning member so as to provide the capability of supporting the edge of the plate workpiece by the aligning bar as well as by the front edge of the X-axis side aligning member.